


hair gel

by nosrav



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Dennis is a little bit of a dick as usual, Gen, Mac has daddy issues, and I don't know how to tag anything teehee, basically a short dissertation on why i feel like mac's hair is symbolic, its really shitty LMAO but give me a break its one in the morning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 18:58:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21306980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosrav/pseuds/nosrav
Summary: Dennis likes when Mac lets his hair down, but he’ll never admit it
Relationships: Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47





	hair gel

Dennis likes when Mac lets his hair down, but he’ll never admit it.

For years now, he’s been slicking it back carefully every morning so that there’s not a hair out of place by the time the bar opens. Or by dinnertime. Or by the time they head back to their apartment, either. All day, every day, it’s gelled back.

But Dennis remembers a time when they were younger, when things were a lot different, when Mac didn’t give so much of a shit about whether or not his hair was slicked back. He can’t really pinpoint a time when it started, but he remembers a time long before now when he just let it flop down over his forehead, or let it stick straight up like he just got out of bed.

It’s not that it looked particularly dashing like that, Dennis just thinks that it looks so much better fluffy as opposed to when it’s slicked back all the way down to his fucking scalp, but Mac clearly doesn’t feel the same. Every day, like clockwork, he’s in the bathroom carefully laying it down. Dennis just doesn’t get it. It looks idiotic.

“Why the fuck do you gel your hair down every god damn day?” He asks Mac at their dinner table once he finally reaches his breaking point. As Dennis is wont to do.

“It’s got to be tiring, let alone time consuming. Why do you do it?”

Mac stills in the movement of picking up his beer before setting it back down slowly. “I don’t know,” he answers, and Dennis would believe him if it wasn’t for the way his eyebrows tilt upwards in the middle.

“Liar,” Dennis fires back, setting his beer down, too. “You wouldn’t be such a stickler about something that you didn’t have a reason for doing. Is it just because you like it like that?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mac says, but he’s too quiet to be confident in his answer. Dennis doesn’t even have to say anything else to try and pry a legitimate reason out of Mac before Mac beats him to the punch.

“No.”

Dennis quirks his head to the side, eyebrows slightly raised, a nonverbal way of saying, ‘Then why?’ or, ‘Please elaborate.’

Mac sighs. “My dad wears his hair like this.” And yeah, Dennis should have seen it coming. He’s not sure if he can bear to have a serious discussion about Luther without going mental. Especially after he walked out on Mac’s performance the last time Mac saw his father, but Dennis keeps the conversation going, because while he can’t stand to talk about Mac’s dad, cutting the conversation off here would prove to be even more awkward and painful than continuing it.

“Okay, so Luther wears his hair slicked back. You know that it doesn’t mean that _you_ have to, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” Mac says, picking up his beer again for a sip. Dennis thinks he has the right idea and quickly follows suit.

“I started wearing it like this a long time ago to, I don’t know, feel closer to him, I guess.”

Of course he would.

“Approval?”

Mac keeps his eyes directly at the table. “Yeah.”

“But, you’ve given up on that now, right?” Dennis implores. “You don’t care about that anymore. Right?”

_ Please don’t care_, he thinks. _Please don’t give a fuck about him anymore._

Mac shakes his head, fingers tracing the brand name on his beer bottle. “No, I don’t care.”

“So why do you still wear your hair like him?”

“Habit, I guess,” Mac says, but the way his voice tilts upward in pitch at the end of his response makes it sound more like a question than a definitive statement.

It makes sense to Dennis, so he doesn’t push it.

When it’s time to leave the next morning, Mac hasn’t slicked his hair back. It’s fluffy and it’s falling over his forehead, just like how Dennis likes it. But will never admit it.

It catches Dennis by surprise for a brief second before he allows the memory of last night’s conversation to catch up with him.

“Looks nice, man,” Dennis tells him, gesturing offhandedly as he grabs the keys to the Rover from off the hook next to the door.

Mac beams a little, and his eyes go down to the floor.

“Thanks. It feels better, too. Less heavy.”

“Yeah, less heavy on your damn bank account, too, now that you won’t be running through two goddamn bottles of hair gel a week.”

Mac’s eyes snap up from the floor and his little shy grin disappears. “Hey! I did not go through two bottles a week! It was one and a half!”

“God dammit, Mac, there’s no fucking difference,” Dennis says, swinging the door to their apartment open.

Mac continues to rant all the way down to the car, but Dennis just lets him.

Mac can’t see the way he’s smiling from where he’s positioned behind Dennis, but he doesn’t really need to see, either. One less thing that’s tying Mac to Luther is one less thing that makes Mac upset, and that’s enough makes Dennis feel better. Better enough to drown out Mac’s annoying ass verbal dissertation on the intricacies of certain hair gel prices.

For now.

**Author's Note:**

> lmaoooo this is so short and silly, I hope u liked anyways. maybe a bit ooc of Dennis at the end to be sweet but I know he's got it in him somewhere.... deep down. also this isn't specifically macdennis but there's no writing around mac's obvious crush on the man so I GUESS it's implied. its endgame anyways .... thank u rcg. but yes I genuinely feel like Mac started to wear his hair back to match Luther and just never really stopped which kinda makes me sad... poor, terrible boy is just desperate for some love and affection... and god dammit Dennis u better give it to him soon.... thank u for reading this I just really wanted to write something tonight


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